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Title: How the SouthWon the Civil War And what this means for Iraq and Iran
Source:
Antiwar
URL Source: http://www.antiwar.com/orig/powell.php?articleid=13035
Published: Jun 24, 2008
Author: Jim Powell
Post Date: 2008-06-24 05:48:25 by Ada
Keywords: None
Views: 113
Comments: 4
We have been told endlessly that the U.S. Civil War was a good war, fought to free the slaves. About 110,100 Union soldiers were killed in action, and another 224,580 died from war-related diseases. An estimated 275,175 Union soldiers were wounded. In 1879, it was believed that the Union had spent $6.1 billion on the war – and that was real money back then. Yet to a significant degree, as far as the former black slaves were concerned, the South was triumphant. We have here one of the most astonishing reminders about how wars backfire, which we ought to keep in mind when discussing other wars, particularly preemptive wars like the one in Iraq or the one being contemplated in Iran. Not long after Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox, Abraham Lincoln's hand-picked successor, Andrew Johnson, helped ex-Confederates reestablish white supremacy in the Southern states. These ex-Confederates understood that the war wasn't really over in 1865. They enacted Black Codes to restrict the freedom of blacks and restore slavery in everything but name. To be sure, Radical Republicans in Congress asserted themselves and passed the Civil War Amendments, officially abolishing slavery, assuring equal rights for former slaves, and guaranteeing the right to vote. But these amendments soon became dead letters. Embittered ex-Confederates formed the Ku Klux Klan, the Knights of the White Camellia, and other terrorist organizations that conducted brutal "Negro hunts." The influence of Radical Republicans declined after a few years as their leaders died or became preoccupied with other issues. Then the party of Lincoln made a deal to resolve the contested presidential election of 1876: they would have federal troops withdrawn from the last three Southern states that were occupied after the Civil War, enabling Democrats to gain complete political control of the South, and in exchange Democrats would permit the Republican candidate, Rutherford B. Hayes, to become the 19th U.S. president. The civil rights of blacks were subverted for almost another century. Incredibly, in the name of reconciliation, Union veterans and Confederate veterans gathered at Memorial Day ceremonies to mourn the dead – without discussing any of the war issues. Those were laid to rest. In 1913, Woodrow Wilson – the first Southerner elected president since the Civil War – gave a speech at Gettysburg, Pa., marking the 50th anniversary of Lincoln's famous address there. Despite all the wartime sacrifices, Wilson declared that the Civil War was "a quarrel forgotten." Moreover, Wilson betrayed his campaign assurances to the black community and segregated federal government offices that hadn't previously been segregated. He defended segregation in a series of letters to New York Post editor Oswald Garrison Villard, the grandson of abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison. Wilson claimed that segregation would eliminate "the discontent and uneasiness which had prevailed in many of the departments." Wilson added that segregation would make blacks "less likely to be discriminated against." The South was victorious ideologically. Its view of the Civil War was the prevailing view in the North for a century. Columbia University Professor William A. Dunning, a founder of the American Historical Association and its president in 1913, was perhaps the most influential promoter of the Southern view. He portrayed Radical Republicans as villains. He helped popularize the term "Carpetbagger," meaning Northerners who went South to seek public office after the Civil War. Dunning defended segregation by claiming that blacks were incapable of self-government. A star of the so-called "Dunning School" of post-Civil War historical writing was Ulrich Bonnell Phillips, who finished his teaching career at Yale. He defended slaveholders against charges that they were brutal, and he claimed they did much to civilize the slaves. Dunning School historians dominated American textbooks well into the 1950s and even the 1960s. So, the Civil War was supposed to be quick and easy, and obviously it wasn't. The Union's military victories gave the losers an uncontrollable lust for revenge, and they renewed their oppression of blacks at the earliest opportunity. Nobody could be counted on to protect the blacks. The Civil War was no shortcut to civil rights. After the war, Northerners didn't want to remember why they had fought, or at least the part about freeing the slaves. We ought to know by now that the killing and destruction of wars tend to intensify hatreds, and they're bound to play out, often in hideous ways that can be impossible even for a militarily superior power to control. If we had as much trouble as we did trying to achieve social reform through war in our own backyard, how can we expect to do wonderful things by sending our soldiers and money to faraway places we know comparatively little about? The history of emancipation in the Western Hemisphere made clear that war wasn't the only way or the best way to free the slaves. Although slavery had been around for thousands of years, abolitionists launched epic movements generating political support that doomed slavery in only about a century and a quarter. Slave rebellions reminded everybody that slaveholding was a risky business. There were private and governmental efforts to buy the freedom of slaves, reducing the number of slaves, reducing the amount of slaveholding territory, and reducing the political clout of slaveholders. Underground railroads further undermined slavery, and the runaways brought with them fresh horror stories for antislavery campaigns. A peaceful, persistent campaign involving a combination of strategies was the key to abolishing slavery. This was also the key to the campaign Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony launched to secure equal rights for women, the campaign that Mohandas Gandhi launched for Indian independence, and the campaign that Martin Luther King launched for civil rights in America.
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#1. To: Ada (#0)
It WAS NOT about freeing slaves. Every slave imported into the South was imported under the American flag. Not one slave was ever imported under the flag of the CSA. "I have no purpose directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so." Lincoln's Inaugural Address
You need to stop using facts and truth to buttress your posts. We all know what we were taught.
Aside from the New York race riots of 1863 causing Union forces to go from Gettysburg to NYC, life was just a bowl of cherries for free blacks in the North. That's why the Underground Railroad did not stop until it got to Canada. A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774 - 1875 U.S. Serial Set, Number 1202 House Miscellaneous Document, 38th Congress, 1st Session POPULATION REPORT OF 1860 INTRODUCTION Page vii In the interval from 1850 to 1860 the total free colored population of the United States increased from 434,449 to 487,970, or at the rate of 12.33 per cent, in ten years, showing an annual increase of above one per cent. This result includes the number of slaves liberated and those who have escaped from their owners, together with the natural increase. In the same decade the slave population, omitting those of the Indian tribes west of Arkansas, increased 23.39 per cent., and the white population 37.97 per cent, which rates exceed that of the free colored by two-fold and three-fold, respectively. Inversely, these comparisons imply an excessive mortality among the free colored, which is particularly evident in the large cities. Thus, in Boston, during the five years ending with 1859, the city registrar observes: "The number of colored births was one less than the number of marriages, and the deaths exceeded the births in the proportion of nearly two to one." In Providence, where a very correct registry has been in operation under the superintendence of Dr. Snow, the deaths are one in twenty-four of the colored; and in Philadelphia, during the last six months of the census year, the new-city registration gives 148 births against 306 deaths among the free colored. Taking town and country Page viii together, however, the results are more favorable. In the State registries of Rhode Island and Connecticut, where the distinction of color has been specified, the yearly deaths of the blacks and mulattoes have generally, though not uniformly, exceeded the yearly births—a high rate of mortality chiefly ascribed to consumption, and other diseases of the respiratory system. In Kentucky, during the year 1852, the births were 1 in 38 of the white population, and 1 in 40 of the colored population, as shown from a total of 25,906 births returned by the State registration. During the same year, the proportion of deaths was 1 in 66 of the blacks, while among the whites it was 1 in 76. The indicated difference of the two races in respect to the rate of births is apparently small in respect to mortality, the difference is more considerable, showing that the hand of death lies somewhat heavier upon the colored race. Another fact from the statistics of New Orleans, in 1849, has been graphically illustrated by Dr. Barton, showing that while the deaths of whites were in greater number in March, September, and October, the deaths of the colored occurred almost uniformly through the year, there being nearly the same number in every month. Owing, among other causes, to the extremes of climate in the more northern States, and in other States to expulsive enactments of the legislatures, the free colored show a decrease of numbers during the past ten years according to the census, in the following ten States; Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Maine, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New York, Oregon, Texas, and Vermont.
except for one thing...the purpose of the war in iraq and iran, just as all others, is not about social reform. that's just a feel good platitude to get the people's support.
“The best and first guarantor of our neutrality and our independent existence is the defensive will of the people…and the proverbial marksmanship of the Swiss shooter. Each soldier a good marksman! Each shot a hit!” Schweizerische Schutzenseitunt (Swiss Shooting Federation) April, 1941
#2. To: X-15 (#1)
#3. To: X-15 (#1)
It WAS NOT about freeing slaves. Every slave imported into the South was imported under the American flag. Not one slave was ever imported under the flag of the CSA.
The Library of Congress
#4. To: Ada (#0)
If we had as much trouble as we did trying to achieve social reform through war in our own backyard, how can we expect to do wonderful things by sending our soldiers and money to faraway places we know comparatively little about?
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